Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 07:37:56 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: Kent County May Count overview MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/12/2003 11:10:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, rossgull@CROSSLINK.NET writes: > Low numbers of several wintering birds appear to indicate how tough the > winter (gone but not forgotten) was. The listings show 2002 May Count > totals in parentheses for comparison. Carolina Wren 17 (93); Eastern > Bluebird 11 (60); Northern Mockingbird 49 (100), and even Northern Cardinal > 101 (231). These declines are all 50% or greater. > > Walter, I have noticed a sharp decline in several of the species you mentioned. Carolina Wrens and Eastern Bluebirds are way down, in my opinion, in Montgomery County this season. Not so much with mockingbird or cardinal, but we didn't have a single Tufted Titmouse on our May Count/ANS Birdathon on Saturday (10 hours in the field), and this in parts of 2 counties! On the other hand, I think we're seeing many more typical "west of the Appalachian" migrants here on this side of the mountain range this spring; more so than usual. I have noted (and seen) many more sightings of such species as Wilson's Warbler, Tennessee and Nashville Warblers, Black-billed Cuckoo and Olive-sided Flycatchers, and Lincoln's Sparrows, as well as others. Though these species do get reported in the spring, I think they've been seen in better than average numbers, and more widely observed than in typical years, due perhaps to all of the strong weather systems coming through the central part of the country so far (it seems a particularly bad tornado season). Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================